I'm interested in evolutionary genomics and cultural evolution. Methodologically, connecting biological (molecular and/or biodiversity) data to cultural data as informatics is the main interest.
§ ancient DNA analyses of a Jomon individual (ancient Hunter-gatherer in Japan, 縄文人 in Japanese) were published from Science (McColl H et al., 2018) and Comm. Biol. (Gakuhari et al., 2020). I'm also interested in modern and ancient people in Northeast Asia, such as ancient Hunter-Gatherer Ohotsk people (Sato et al, GBE, 2021).
After 150 years of Darwin's "Descent of Man," compared to genomics, our knowledge of cultural evolution in humans is still limited. Language is a great example, how human is distinct from other species. Moreover, linguistics is more sympathetic to biology than other cultural studies because linguistics covers the biological function of the brain and speech, coding language features (sounds, characters, etc.), and computational analysis (natural language processing).
§ The first study about relationships between population history and music in Northeast Asia (Savage, et al. 2015)
§ Methodologically, linguistic relationships beyond language families were difficult. We established statistical methods to see relationships beyond language families and found robust correlations between grammatical similarities and population history in 10 language families in Northeast Asia. Our finding suggested that grammatical similarities would reflect three factors; human migration history (genetic history), historical events (e.g., language shift in local history), or culture-specific evolution independent from genetic history. (Matsumae et al, Sci. Adv. 2021)
We have organized international meetings covering genomics, linguistics, musicology, and cultural evolution.
Workshop "the (co-)evolution of genes, languages, and music from data analyses to theoretical models" Yokohama, Japan, July 17, 2018.
Workshop "Frontiers of early human expansion in Asia: linguistic and genetic perspectives on Ainu, Japan and the North Pacific Rim" Zurich, Switzerland, 2016.
Currently working on Fungi related to human diseases, in collaboration with clinical researchers and taxonomists.
We found genetic evidence of hybridized species of host-specific fungal pathogens in wheat. (Menardo et al. 2016, Nat. Genet. )
We are sequencing fungal genomes and measuring fungal traits using image analysis to establish an experimental model in evolutionary biology for understanding more complex life cycles, body shapes, and roles in biodiversity than yeast. (related to 4. Museomics).